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Description

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Socrates (469 BC–399 BC) was a Classical Greek philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known only through the classical accounts of his students.

Plato's dialogues are the most comprehensive accounts of Socrates to survive from antiquity.

Socrates did not write philosophical texts. The knowledge of the man, his life, and his philosophy is based on writings by his students and contemporaries. Foremost among them are Plato, Xenophon and Aristophanes. The difficulty of finding the “real” Socrates arises because these works are often philosophical or dramatic texts rather than straightforward histories.

Details about Socrates derive from three contemporary sources: the dialogues of Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of Aristophanes. He has been depicted by some scholars, including Eric Havelock and Walter Ong, as a champion of oral modes of communication, standing up at the dawn of writing against its haphazard diffusion.

Through his portrayal in Plato's dialogues, Socrates has become renowned for his contribution to the field of ethics, and it is this Platonic Socrates who also lends his name to the concepts of Socratic irony and the Socratic method, or elenchus. The latter remains a commonly used tool in a wide range of discussions, and is a type of pedagogy in which a series of questions are asked not only to draw individual answers, but to encourage fundamental insight into the issue at hand. It is Plato's Socrates that also made important and lasting contributions to the fields of epistemology and logic, and the influence of his ideas and approach remains strong in providing a foundation for much western philosophy that followed.

To simplify study of works about Socrates the application supports full text search within all included texts. This is very useful when you need to find a quote or information on a particular subject but don't know where you should looking for.